It was your typical muggy late-August night in New York City back in 1998. My t-shirt was pretty much soaked with perspiration and my body ached for a comfy mattress. I was no different than the two dozen or so crew members who had long since entered exalted time-and-a-half status hours ago. A copter sat on a helipad, awaiting its cue. Floodlights were set up all around the pier as not to miss one square inch of action. A large, rusty metal cylinder ominously suspended by a crane over the Hudson River. In the middle of it all was a 6-foot-4 man with a shock of hair the color of tomato soup. He was the reason we were all there. That man was Conan O’Brien.
I had been a staff member on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” for five months when I found myself out on that pier filming the opening to the 5th anniversary special. It wasn’t the oddest place I found myself during my time with Conan. Once I was out in Times Square during a snow flurry with a platoon of Civil War re-enactors, recreating the Battle of Gettysburg. Another time I was on the U.S.S. Intrepid with the original line-up for KISS, who were reuniting in full make-up and costume. I stood less than six feet away from Gene Simmons. So this was just another day at the office.
The premise of this “cold open” was that Conan put all of his greatest comedy bits in the rusty cylinder, and he was going to drop it into the depths of the Hudson. After a beat, Conan was supposed to say, “Okay, now why did we do that?” Someone would reply, “I don’t know.” Then a panicky Conan – not a stuntman – would jump into the Hudson, supposedly to retrieve his precious clips. It was well past midnight. We had been out there since 6pm and the majority of us – including Conan – put in a full day at the office prior to taping that night’s show.
Finally, it was time for the last shot – the shot of Conan jumping into the river. The director yelled “ACTION!” and Conan launched into his monologue. Exactly on cue, the cylinder is dropped, Conan does the “Why are we doing this?” bit. But right before he was supposed to jump into the water, I noticed a split-second of hesitation on Conan’s part – an almost imperceptible pause that would most likely not be noticed by the viewing audience. There was a sigh of relief among the crew as Conan was fished out of the Hudson. As soon as Conan was back on the pier, still clad in the wetsuit he wore underneath his clothing, the first words out of his mouth were “I want to see the playback.” Most of us thought – hoped – that this was a mere formality; if we had to redo the shot it would add an extra hour at the very least onto what had already become a long day’s journey into night. As we stood around watching Conan watching the video playback, I knew that we were heading to another take. If I – a lowly production assistant with less than three years of television experience – noticed Conan’s hesitation then surely Conan himself must have been aware of it. Sure enough, Conan finally said, “I hesitated too long right there.” Almost unanimously, the crew groaned. But we all knew that Conan was absolutely right. He could do it better.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that night the past few weeks, since the whole debacle between Conan and NBC started going down. I especially thought of it when NBC head Jeff Zucker said that Conan “let me down” as host of “The Tonight Show,” and again when NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol labeled Conan “an astounding failure.” (And if anyone should know about astounding failure, it’d be Ebersol – the man who brought us the XFL, who stands to lose the network $200 million on this year’s Winter Olympics and who watched as baseball, basketball and NASCAR walked away under his watch.) NBC’s characterization of O’Brien – and his refusal to accept a midnight slot for “The Tonight Show” in order to shoehorn Jay Leno into the late night schedule – definitely does not gel with my memories of Conan as being, not to sound cliché, the hardest working man in show business. I’ve heard of several talk show hosts showing up less than an hour before taping, taking only a passing interest in their show. None of them lasted very long and Conan was certainly not one of them.
I remember starting as an intern there in December of 1995. Conan was just getting past the rocky start of his tenure as host of “Late Night” and the looming scythe of cancellation seemed to be fading rapidly in the distance. Conan had a lot of pressure on his shoulders at the time. He’d often stay in the office into the wee hours of the night working on some bit or another with his writers, doing interviews with the press, shooting promos for the local affiliates – anything for the betterment of the show. The point is, how can you accuse someone of “letting you down” when he devotes every waking moment to making the show as good as it could possibly be, no matter how many hours he has to spend?
I don’t doubt that Zucker was disappointed with the ratings. I’m sure Conan and his crew were as well. But to say Conan personally let him down is grossly unfair. Conan cannot and should not shoulder all of the responsibility. Conan was saddled with diminished lead-ins from the local news, which in turn were burned by the anemic performance of “The Jay Leno Show.” It usually takes a host about a year to really get into their groove and learn how to host their show well. Conan was just starting to hit his stride and should have been given the benefit of staying at least a year on the air. Back in 1992, when East Coast executives were attempting to throw Leno overboard and install David Letterman as host of “The Tonight Show,” then-head of NBC programming, Warren Littlefield, who months earlier had made the call to chose Leno over Letterman, argued that Jay was growing into the job and that eventually, his decision would be vindicated. It was. It took 18 months, but Leno finally started beating Letterman in the ratings and he never looked back. O’Brien certainly should have been given that same chance.
But the one thing that really upset me off personally was when NBC was claiming that Conan’s angling for a better severance package for his staff – the majority of whom sold their homes and uprooted their families and lives to travel across country because of their belief in their boss – was nothing more than a PR stunt. That really offended me, because I can tell you first hand, Conan not only treats his staff with more respect than I’ve ever seen in any industry, he genuinely cares about them, no matter what position they may hold. I recall when Conan found out that a member of his staff mistreated and publicly embarrassed an NBC Page, he made that staff member apologize to that Page. He didn’t have to do that, he could’ve looked the other way, but he didn’t. That’s the Conan O’Brien I knew.
Conan was the most accessible talent I have ever worked with. The interns used to stay about a half-hour after taping and they’d usually watch “The Simpsons,” which at one time Conan wrote and produced. After the show, on his way to the executive producer’s office, Conan would more often than not stop, watch a few seconds of “The Simpsons” and chat briefly with the interns and give them some sort of behind-the-scenes story behind the episode they were watching. Getting “face time” with Conan was often the highlight of the day. Did interns have to go out and do stuff like pick up Conan’s dry cleaning or get him freshly squeezed orange juice? Of course we did – that’s part of paying your dues. Everyone had to do stuff like that – even Conan. His first job was as an intern for Comic Relief in the 80s, where he was assigned to Estelle Getty. “I had to get her things like hair nets,” Conan once told a reporter, “which are not easy to find, but I did it.” But not once did I never hear Conan forget to say “thank you.”
On his last show, Conan said “Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.” It is excellent advice. After all, hard work and kindness have propelled him far and I’m certain it will propel him even further. When the history of television is written, Conan O’Brien’s tenure on “The Tonight Show” will not be considered a failure. Indeed, the failure will rest upon the shoulders of those at the top who neglected to serve him with the kindness and respect he has shown others. –Ron Motta
Last week, the anti-Proposition 8 “No H8te” campaign released photos of Cindy McCain posing in support of gay marriage. While gay activists have welcomed Cindy McCain with open arms, DoubleX, a blog predominantly geared towards women, had this to say:
